Tag: Writing

The story remains

Please indulge me in a moment of nostalgia today. It’s a very special anniversary.

Eleven years ago today, I started writing Woven. After years of feeling stuck in my writing. Years of starting projects but never finishing. Years of shrugging and saying I was a writer, but never really writing. I took expensive bread from a coffee shop that isn’t there anymore to a park that still is. I fed the birds and prayed for a book idea that wouldn’t die before its first real breath.

A spell is just a prayer with extra steps. I believe this was the most successful spell I’ve ever cast.

Eleven years have passed. I have moved homes three times. (And am getting ready to move again, God help me.) The walls and roof that surround me have changed. The desk at which I sit, sipping copious cups of coffee and tea, has changed. I’ve written at a desk older than me, painted over countless times. I’ve written at coffee shops, laundromats, doctor’s offices, libraries and day jobs. I’ve written at a desk my husband made for me by hand. It’s actually the first piece of furniture I’ve ever owned that wasn’t second-hand, and that’s where I’m still writing right now.

The story has remained.

I’ve changed jobs then job titles. I’ve changed my last name.

My family has changed. It shrank, but then swelled again. I lost people I never thought I’d lose. Never thought I could survive losing.

I’ve found new people. A new family, a new place in the world to need others and be needed in.

The story has remained.

I’ve written other stories. Some published, some not. Some tucked away for ‘someday’. Every one of them owes their existence to Woven. Because if it wasn’t for the story about a boy who weaves visions and a girl who spins light, I never would have had the courage or knowledge to write anything else.

I stepped out of my twenties and into my thirties. Soon, I’ll move into my forties. My hair has started to show silver. My back hurts in fun new places.

And yet, this story remains.

I became a horror critic. Then the site folded. Woven was bought by a publisher and then dropped. I republished it. Then I published it wide, a thing I wouldn’t have been able to do if the publisher hadn’t dropped us.

The story, through it all, remains.

We’ve lived through a pandemic and at least two recessions. At least some of us have. We’ve seen wars start and start. And start. We’ve seen three presidents. Well, two presidents and one threat to our country.

The story, though, remains.

And at this point, I feel like I’m ending a long journey. With Falling From Grace going wide this Friday, I’ve done almost everything I can do with it until I can afford to make it an audiobook. (I’m working on it.) Unless I write another book in the same world, the story of Woven is at its inevitable end.

Except, of course, that there are new readers in the world every day. New people looking for new stories. And I don’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon.

So this story will remain. I’ll write others. I’ll share others. And we’ll all keep right on changing.

I am so glad you’re here to share the journey with me.

Falling From Grace is going wide on Friday!

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The End of Haunted MTL

The publishing world is ever changing. What was a thriving online market yesterday could well be bankrupt tomorrow. A publishing company that was an unquestioned pillar can crumble. A beloved author can seemingly go out of her way to destroy her reputation.

And a beloved horror review site can shutter.

Sadly, Haunted MTL is no more. And, I might as well rip this band-aid off now, there will not be another season of AA.

I might write the story in book form, if anyone is interested. I was certainly going somewhere with the story.

I started working for Haunted MTL in 2019. I’d already published several novels by this time, but this was something different. This was an actual writing job.

I loved my time writing for Haunted MTL. I met so many amazing writers and made friends with several. There is nothing better than writing friends. I got to see horror movies that I might never have seen. Some I wish had never assaulted my eyeballs, like Antichrist. Some I loved very much, like Silent Night and Pooka. I conducted live tweet events during American Horror Story and Dexter, and got to talk to fellow fans all around the world.

Being a critic was a fantastic experience. If you want to be a good writer, one important exercise is to dissect a piece of work that you have strong opinions about, good or bad, and consider why it either works or doesn’t work. As a critic, that was exactly what I did twice a week. And I even got paid for it.

I was also invited to participate in several charity anthologies, which is always great. We conducted storytelling events through the years, writing short stories together. Including several years of Christmas and holiday horrors.

We did podcasts. We did events. We once read A Christmas Carol together and posted it. It was a laugh.

It was too good, maybe, to last.

I will miss Haunted MTL. I will miss the sense of writing camaraderie. Of being on staff. Of being part of a team.

But even as I mourn, I know it’s time to move on. As I said at the top, the publishing world is ever changing. And so even as this spooky door closes, another will open.

If you find yourself in this sort of situation, I’m so sorry. But remember, setbacks like this don’t necessarily reflect on you. Sometimes projects don’t work. We are artists, and art is subjective. Sometimes we’re going to do our level best and still not succeed. All there is for us then is to dust ourselves off, have a little cry, and write another story.

Then another, and another.

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Starting Chains is going wide! Check out all the places it will be available here.

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Why Sunrise on The Reaping Works

So I just finished reading Sunrise on The Reaping. And it emotionally wrecked me.

Yes, I know these books are written for teenagers. I don’t care, they’ve had me crying in public more than once.

I happened to be carrying the book with me as I was running errands. One of those errands was to return the book safely to the library from where it came. But in one shop, the man behind the counter said, “Oh, that’s that new Hunger Games book, right? I heard that was coming out.”

And I said, “Yes, I just finished it.”

“Is it any good?” he asked, “Or is it just a money grab?”

“Oh no,” I said, as though those two things were mutually exclusive. “It’s very good.”

I know the accusations get thrown around often when an author comes back to a popular series and adds more to the story. And sometimes it’s a valid argument. Sometimes it’s even a warning of elder abuse.

IYKYK.

But I honestly don’t think that Suzanne Collins wrote Reaping because she was running low on cash. And frankly, even if she did, I’m not mad at it. Because even if she wrote this book for money, it was still a damned good book. So today, let’s talk about why Sunrise on The Reaping was such a good prequel. Aside, of course, from the many reasons why this series is great to begin with. I was obsessed with re-reading the series after I finished Reaping, and I’m shocked by how good it is. How accurate it is. I’m sure I’ll talk more about that later, but for today, let’s just focus on Sunrise on The Reaping.

The story made sense with the rest of the series

The story of Haymich’s Hunger Games fits thematically with the rest of the series. It felt like the rest of the books if that makes sense.

Most good writers have a voice. They have certain ways of phrasing things, word preferences, and pacing that cannot and should not be taught. It’s something we writers develop over time.

And it’s something that changes over time. Take for instance Stephen King’s Castle Rock books versus his Holly books. They have a different feel, don’t they? Not entirely different, but enough that it’s noticeable. This is partially because they’re very different series that deal with different subject matter and different sorts of main characters. They were also written decades apart from each other, of course. And that’s the really tricky part. Writing voices change over time. While that’s to be expected and is in fact a good thing, it can also be difficult if you want to go back and add something to your series later.

But Reaping feels very much like the rest of the series. It feels like a similar vibe, a similar voice. And that’s not an easy thing to do.

This world feels like it is filled with stories

One of the great things about the world of Hunger Games is that it feels like it’s full of stories. Katniss has one story, and it feels like an ending. But it’s also an open ending. There are ways that the story can continue.

And there are certainly ways it can expand in the past. I mean, we have how many Hunger Games between Katniss’s and Lucy Gray’s? And what about the war that started all of this? What about the calamity that befell the world to give us Panem to start with? And we haven’t even learned that much about the other districts. I mean, I love District 12 because it’s basically where I live. But there are twelve other districts we could learn about. I’d read a book about a victor from each one, personally. I also wouldn’t mind a book about District 13 and how it fell.

I have no idea if we’re going to get any of those books. I don’t know if Collins plans to write anymore in this world. But I hope she does. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this world she’s created.

It was a well-written story that built on all of the other books

As I mentioned earlier, this story built well on the rest of the series.

We already knew there was a reason Haymich was a drunk. Now we have every tragic detail. We know what it must have cost him, year after year, to work with kids bound for the games. We understand more why he had such affection for Mags, and why he has such a mixed series of emotions around Trinket. Above all else, this is what compelled me to go back and read the rest of the series again.

But this book also adds to Snow’s story from Songbirds and Snakes. It also adds to Bettie’s story and Wiress’s. In short, it expanded the world in ways that built up, rather than ignoring, the work that had been done before.

It’s not the first prequel that was satisfying

Speaking of Songbirds and Snakes, as well as work already done, that was also a good book. Much of what I’ve said about Reaping can be said about that one as well.

Having one prequel that was already a joy made me far more excited to read this one. Because, to me at least, it proved that Collins was still eager to write in this world, and still had more stories to tell. It’s said that the first chapter of your book sells your book, while the last chapter sells the sequel. That was certainly the case here.

It was clearly a joy to write

Finally, this might just be writer bias. But because the book is so well written, I have to assume that it was fun to write. Collins was passionate about writing it.

Writing takes time, as you’re probably aware. Time that could be used to do just about anything else. To put in the time and effort it takes to write a good book, you need to care about what you’re writing. It needs to move you, to pull you back again and again. Your passion for the story has to be enough to get through the exhausting days. The days when everyone else has needed so much of you. You’ve gone to work, made one to three meals, and cleaned and cared for loved ones both flesh and furry. On the days when it feels like committing yourself to one more thing might break you, you need to feel passionate about your story to make it happen.

That’s why I think Reaping was written with love. You can feel that Collins had something to say. Something she needed to say.

I hope she has more to say. And I hope that if you haven’t yet read Sunrise on The Reaping you get a chance to soon.

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My thoughts after Pathfinders Writing Collective’s March Madness

I got an email on Monday that maybe you got too. It was from the Nanowrimo organization, explaining that they are shutting down.

I have mixed feelings about this. I posted months ago about why I was stepping away from Nanowrimo. But it’s an organization that inspired millions of writers over the years. It gave me the inspiration and courage to write my first published novel.

This one. Available now on Amazon and going wide as of April 25th.

And yet, I also feel we are seeing the writing community’s response to AI writing. We will not support any organization that gives quarter and comfort to AI platforms that steal our work and produce flat and soulless stories flooding our markets.

There is one part of the letter that I agree with, though. Interim executive director Kilby Blades said, “Many alternatives to NaNoWriMo popped up this year, and people did find each other.”

And this is true. We found each other. And this past month I participated in a writing challenge that does just this. The Pathfinding Writers Collective March Madness event. And it was a fantastic experience. Even though my team lost. If we’re being fair, I personally lost twice.

Let me explain.

My personal goal for the month was to write for 31 hours in March. One hour a day. And that sounds easy until we remember that I’m caring for a husband who had a hemorrhagic stroke. He needs an incredible amount of hands-on care. So there were a lot of days where an hour of writing was a delightful daydream.

But this was still an incredible success for me. Let me explain.

I still wrote more than I had been writing

As mentioned, this is a busy season of my life. And for much of February my writing took a back seat. Hell, it wasn’t even in the back seat. It wasn’t in the trunk. It was in the attached trailer behind the damn car. Most days I couldn’t even think of looking at my writing.

But in March, I wrote twenty days out of thirty-one. I made the time. I tried to write an hour, but sometimes made only 15 minutes. Sometimes I only made 10. But that’s still more than what I had been doing. I didn’t make a ton of progress, but I made more than the month before.

There was this incentive, you know. This desire to make sure I had some numbers to put on the board, even if it was a small number. Because any number, any number at all, was better than zero.

I kind of love time-based writing goals

Writing goals work for me. I like having numbers to work towards. For most of my writing career, my goals were word-count based. But I’m realizing that this sort of goal isn’t conducive to actual writing. It doesn’t take into consideration all of the work that goes into writing that isn’t putting words on the page. I was ignoring the time I spent researching, freewriting, outlining and planning. Those are all vital parts of writing that need time and space. They need to not be rushed.

I also find that my writing goes faster when I devote that time, unrushed, to the brainstorming process. It’s as if by giving my mind time to mull over the story without a keyboard under my fingers, it has more space to breathe and is already written when I am ready to write.

Having a community is awesome

We’ve talked about this before, so I’m not going to devote much time to this. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important!

It is, if I’m being honest, the most important part of challenges like this. It’s what made Nanowrimo so special.

Writing is solitary. Its deadlines are often self-imposed. I have no boss asking me for updates. I have no co-workers to bounce ideas off of. I have no external pressure to create. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

For one thing, it’s lonely. For another, it makes it so much easier to push off tasks I don’t want to do because, after all, there are no repercussions.

But when I have a team of people I’m working with, there is some good pressure. When I don’t want to let my team down, I’m inspired to get my ass in my chair and write. On days when I might not have written at all, I wrote. On days I needed inspiration, I had the rest of my team. And that made all the difference.

I didn’t take as much advantage of the challenge as I wanted to. I could have done more. I could have attended more writing sprints. I could have chatted more and made more friends. But for where I am, I think I did the best I could. And I saw so many writers reach so much farther than they thought they could. I saw this wonderful community of writers cheering each other on, supporting each other, and inspiring each other. I don’t want to give out names that aren’t mine to give, but one writer in my group wrote through 249 hours in one month. Girl, how?!

But whether we wrote almost 250 hours or thirteen hours, we all came together to reach a goal. We all made progress on our stories. And we need stories now more than ever.

So the question is, will I be participating in more Pathfinder Writing Collective events? Absolutely. I cannot wait.

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To write a long novel

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.

-Jane Austen

Let’s hear it for the long novel. There is just something about a big, hefty book that feels delicious.

Of course, I am a fan of Stephen King. I’ve read The Stand no less than seven times. I loved Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor. And Phillipa Gregory isn’t exactly short-winded either. Then of course there’s the holy grail of my childhood fantasy reading, Mists of Avalon.

A long novel is what you write when you want to explore sweeping expansive descriptions. When you want your readers to see the jeweled beetle sitting on the windowsill. In short (rim shot) writing a long novel takes a much different skill set than a short one.

Rich descriptions

If a short novel is like a sketch, a long novel is a wall-sized oil painting. The details in long novels are rich.

Consider a long novel you’ve read. I bet you feel like you could step into some of the most iconic rooms. You might be able to see the bedspreads or picture the garden bench.

Not everyone loves this sort of description, but some fans eat it up. I personally think it’s a great place to flex a more literary style of writing. This is a great place to get symbolic and poetic.

Large cast

Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter. All of these have massive casts that span far beyond the main character. And most of those characters are fully formed. They have likes, dislikes, families, desires. We can see how changes in the world will impact these different characters in different ways.

This is a fantastic way to expand the world. To show different points of view that might challenge your main characters.

And yes, large books often have more than one main character.

Having the space to explore your world from multiple points of view is one of the benefits of writing a long book. It’s not an easy task. It’s difficult to juggle a large cast with their varying details and desires. So you’ll probably want to start a book bible as soon as possible.

Worldbuilding

Writing a large novel gives you space to really explore the world. If you enjoy creating different countries and communities, this is ideal for you.

Especially if you’re incorporating a large cast, you can establish as many communities as your heart desires and the story will support.

However, here’s a word of warning. Don’t get so lost in building your world that you forget to tell your story. Because the most beautifully crafted world can only hold someone’s interest so far. Remember, the story comes first. Everything else is just a stage setting.

Subplots aplenty

In a long novel, there is space to tell many stories. There can be subplots. There can be side quests. There can be love stories between secondary characters.

And that kind of feels more real, doesn’t it? There’s rarely a time when your life is just revolving around one thing. Even at the height of my husband’s stroke recovery, we were still dealing with other things. It’s never just one thing, is it?

Take my book, Station 86. While the characters are dealing with the Hollow Suits, they’re also falling in and out of love. They’re working on their careers and businesses. They’re trying to keep peace and keep food on the table. They’re running for office. They are living complex, complicated, messy, wonderful, horrible, realistic lives.

In the end, a large novel is all about space. It’s having space to stretch out and make sweeping and grand stories that are an investment of time. But that’s not going to deter people if you’ve done you’re job right. In fact, it might well be a great selling point.

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Stories Save Us

This is a speech I gave during the Stories We Share Event at the Butler Library event on December 27th. Several lovely people suggested that I publish it. So, here you are.

Hi there. My name is Nicole. I write stories about dragons, ghosts and spaceships. Sometimes I write about the ghosts of dragons on spaceships. And, like most people who are at least mildly funny, I have been through some hard life events.

Don’t worry, this isn’t all depressing, I promise.

I was raised by a mother with a lot of chronic health issues. This meant I spent more time in my childhood than I should have in waiting rooms, doctor’s offices, or just keeping myself occupied quietly so my mom could rest.

I passed the time by reading. Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Laura Ingells, Babysitter’s Club. These stories kept me company in dark places. I escaped into Secret Gardens and attic rooms enhabited by Little Princesses.

As an adult, I fell in love with and married a man who also has chronic health issues. Because of course, right? And again, books have come to my rescue. Stephen King, Philippa Gregory, Tamora Pierce, Kiersten White and Grady Hendrix keep me company through scary days.

Now I do more than read these stories, I write my own. And in the past few years, while almost everyone has fallen on hard times, it’s sometimes felt foolish to keep writing fiction. Indulgent, and insensitive even. A writer I’m very fond of named Matt Wallace, who wrote the Savage Rebellion series, said that marketing right now feels like standing outside of a burning building and yelling at the people coming out, “Hey, you wanna buy a book?”

But the answer is yes, yes I actually do want to buy a book and read it. I want stories.

Stories can save us. And they do this in two ways. The first is of course that they’re entertaining. It’s fun to read. And while you can’t run away from your problems, you can take a break from them. Maybe you need some time in Narnia, or a haunted house, or a world where sewing is magic. Because after we take that time, take that break in a book, we come out a little bit stronger. Maybe that gives us the clearer eyes we need to look for the helpers that Mr. Rodgers told us about. Maybe it even gives us the strength and courage to be the helpers.

Here’s the other thing that stories do for us. They tell us that we are not alone. Fear can make us feel like we’re the only ones suffering. That no one else understands the pain we’re going through. But that’s not true. We’ve all had those seasons in life where we’ve gotten a scary diagnosis, tried to leave a dangerous relationship, fought an addiction, moved far away from everything familiar, or worried about how we’re going to pay rent and get groceries, and keep the electric on. We’ve all said goodbye to people we never wanted to say goodbye to, or had something violent and terrible happen to us that we neither deserved or saw coming.

Neil Gaiman said this about writing Coraline. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” But we knew this before Gaiman. The author of Beowulf knew this and wrote about monsters and dragons that the great hero faced. These stories comforted and guided our first ancestors. They helped them cope, heal, and find the courage they needed.

We are not going to fight literal dragons. We aren’t going to face Voldemort, or a sentient haunted house, or a series of unfortunate events orchestrated by a school friend of our dead parents. But we are going to fight our own dragons. And a lot of the time we win, and live to see brighter days.

What worries me, is how many people can’t remember the last time they read something for pleasure. Most of us spend a lot more time doom-scrolling than resting our hearts in fiction. If that’s you, find a book you want to read today. We are standing in a library right now. Find a book to take home with you. Take half an hour, ten minutes, hell five minutes, and read a story you love. Maybe it’s something you read as a child, or maybe it’s a new book. Maybe it’s wildly out of your age range. Look, when I’m stressed I reach right for Beverly Cleary so I’m not going to judge.

Make the space for you to have joy, no matter how bad your day is going. Because we all need to remember that dragons can be beaten.

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The books that inspired me to write Woven

Writers are readers first. I have been honored to know and befriend many writers, and I have never met one who didn’t have a passion for books. Ask any of us about what we’re reading, or what our favorite books from childhood are, and watch our faces light up.

(I am currently reading Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. Tis the season.)

What we read shapes what we write. Because of course, we want to tell the sort of stories that we love to read.

There are exceptions, of course. I love some good historical fiction, memoirs and biographies of interesting people. But I have no desire to write one of those.

As a child, I loved fantasy, science fiction and horror. As an adult, that’s what I write. And there are three series in particular that inspired my fantasy series, Woven.

Likely, you’ve read these before. If you have, maybe you can see the inspiration already. If you haven’t read them, I cannot recommend them enough. Here now are the three series, what they taught me, and how they inspired me to write Woven.

Dragon Riders of Pern taught me to love dragons and see a place for myself in writing fantasy.

This might surprise you, but Dragon Riders of Pern was my first introduction to dragons. It shouldn’t surprise you, because this introduction took place when I was about five, being read to by my aunt. I immediately fell in love with the relationships between humans and dragons. And when I discovered dragons who were just as smart, if not smarter, than humans in the film Dragonheart, I was hooked.

Dragon Riders of Pern was also the first time I remember seeing a woman’s name on the cover of a book. At least, a fantasy book. I was fully aware that The Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Vally High were written by women. And I was already hooked on Ramona. I mean no offense to Francine Pascal, Ann M. Martin, and certainly not Beverly Cleary. They wrote great books that I loved as a child. But they always wrote about, well, children and teenagers. They wrote about the real world, and all the problems girls and boys got into. The people who wrote about robots and dragons and ghosts were, well, men. Stephen King, J.R Tolkien, R.L Stine, C.S Lewis. I loved them, but I had a hard time seeing myself among them. Anne McCaffrey showed me that I could belong in that world first.

Chronicles of Narnia taught me to write about faith.

Speaking of C.S. Lewis, I love him. I love the Chronicles of Narnia.

The story is fantastic, I cannot stress this enough. But it’s also faith-affirming.

Gently. And that is the important part here.

Chronicles of Narnia is not judgemental. It’s not the Left Behind series. It’s not one of the many books I read as an LDS child. It is a gentle story that teaches real morals about being a good person.

While Woven doesn’t have a strong religious component, it is a little bit about faith. Lenore specifically learns about celebrating your faith when it doesn’t celebrate you. She deconstructs and removes herself from the Church, but not the Creator.

Gee, wonder why I wrote about that.

Chronicles of Narnia gave me the inspiration to write about faith, as I experienced it, without worrying that I was going to be judgemental towards others.

Circle of Magic taught me to write about tactile magic

Finally, Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic was the biggest inspiration for Woven.

Pierce once said that she was inspired by her mother and sisters doing handcrafts. She saw magic in creating cloth from string. This is something I agree with. I knit and crochet, and that’s always felt like a very attainable magic.

Great, grand magic is loads of fun. It’s fun to read about people who wave a sword and bring lighting down from the sky. So I wrote that. But it’s also somehow comforting to imagine magic coming from such a simple act and powerful act.

Now it’s your turn. What books inspired your current WIP? Let us know in the comments.

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My thoughts on the Nanowrimo controversy

Before we begin, I just want to state that everything I’m going to say today is my opinion and my opinion alone. It does not represent any organizations I belong to or write for.

I don’t want to write this. It irritates me that I feel like I have to.

I’m heartsick that I feel like I have to.

In case you’ve missed the news, the NaNoWriMo organization, apropos of nothing, decided to put out a statement that has everyone in the writing community hot under the collar.

Including me.

Now, they’ve since updated this statement. But I think it’s important to share the original one to see why everyone is so upset. Here is a link.

So, if you read this and you don’t understand why everyone’s so up in arms, let me explain. Nanowrimo is not encouraging people to use AI tools to write their novels. They are simply not opposed to this.

Now, let me tell you why I’m furious.

In April of last year, I wrote about the fears of AI writing and how I thought it would hurt the writing community. Specifically, I was worried less about creative writing and more technical writing, like mass-produced blog posts and pithy product descriptions. That was before I found out that the AI generators have been scraping the internet and stealing any work published online.

At this point, it’s safe to say that the primary AI chatbots have my books. They have every post I’ve ever written here. And if you publish your work online, they have yours too. Visual art is taken as well, of course. The online artists were the first ones to sound the alarm.

That is not fucking okay. Artists like us work for years. We practice our work, finding our individual voices and honing our crafts. It isn’t easy, what we do. It takes talent, yes, but it also takes a shit ton of work. I am infuriated that the people who control these chatbots and AI tools feel entitled to the work that we pour into our art. They don’t have the right.

I know that legal protections are coming. At this time I’m unsure how much good it will do. But I am looking into ways to be a part of that.

I am sad to say that the Nanowrimo organization is not. And based on their updated statement, they have no intention to. Their response to the well-deserved fury and vitriol online was to remain as wishy-washy as they were to start with. Though at least they apologized for calling all of us abalist and classist.

It would have been one thing if they’d come out and said that some AI tools are beneficial for writers. I don’t know what those tools might be, but I am open to there being some tools that help people. I am not myself disabled and my mental illnesses don’t impact my writing. At least not in such a way that would be helped by any AI tool I’ve ever heard of.

But that isn’t what they did. They did not say that they were supportive of tools that help people with disabilities. They didn’t list examples of AI tools that help people with disabilities. They instead gave blanket approval to tools that steal our creative work and allow people to take it whenever they please and call it their own. And I cannot abide that. So for the first time in a decade, I will not be participating in Nanowrimo. I deleted my account. I’ll be removing my Preptober planner from my Ko-fi shop, and restructuring it as a novel planner instead. I hope that the board at Nanowrimo reverse their decision. But I’m not holding my breath.

In the end, I am not going to judge anyone, personally or privately, who continues to participate. Nanowrimo is still a great inspiration, especially for young and new writers.

But I cannot in good faith associate myself with any organization that does not fiercely defend writers and artists from the creative cannibalism that is generative AI. So for now, as much as it pains me, I’m stepping away.

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10 things I’ve learned about blogging in 10 years

I’ve been writing Paper Beats World for ten years now. And it’s impossible to do anything for ten years without getting better at it. At least, I hope so. I’m always learning new things, trying new styles and doing what I can to make Paper Beats World a fun place to be on the internet.

So, today I want to share with you the top ten things I’ve learned about blogging after doing it for ten years. If you have your own blog, or you’re thinking of starting one, I hope some of this advice helps you.

People like hearing about how you screwed up

I messed up a book launch and wrote about it. That post got so many likes and views. My publisher dropped me, and my site traffic went up.

Posts where I talk about what’s going right don’t do have as well as the posts about when I’ve truly stepped in it. I don’t love that, but here we are.

I tell you this not to suggest you write a blog full of doom and tragedy. Rather, I want to encourage you to share your setbacks along with your wins. Instagram might be a highlight reel of your life, but your blog shouldn’t be.

The posts you don’t expect to do well take off

I try my best with every post. But of course, some come out better than others. Some I’m just more proud of, and some do better traffic-wise.

Those two things don’t always match up. They usually don’t. Posts like my series about using tarot for storytelling, which I spent so much time researching and writing, do fine. But posts about writing dark poetry, which I enjoyed writing but didn’t think anyone was going to care about, become literally the most popular post on the site of all time.

There is no telling what’s going to go viral and what’s going to end up forgotten. So you might as well just put out what you want to put out and hope for the best.

You never know what is going to be a huge drive for your blog

Do you know what I do that brings the most people to Paper Beats World? I post about them on Pinterest. That draws more traffic than anything else. It upped my traffic so much that the year I started doing it, I doubled my views from the year before.

While I don’t believe in using social media I don’t like just because it will get traffic (There’s a reason I’m not on Facebook or Twitter) I do think you should try some things out. You might like the site more than you think at first. And you might find an audience ready and eager for what you have to offer.

Quality over quantity

When Paper Beats World started, I was writing three posts a week. It was exhausting. When I stopped, I had more time to focus on what I was posting. And my views went up. Because rather than blasting out posts, I was carefully putting out good work. Or, at least better work. One good post is always better than three meh ones.

Every time I change the style of the site, views take a hit

Occasionally I like to change up the style of the site. Use a different theme, change the font. And every time I do it, numbers drop. I’m not sure why, but the math maths.

Maybe it’s because people inherently dislike change. Maybe because the site looks different they can’t find their way around. Or maybe I make too many changes too fast and regular visitors find it unrecognizable. And I wish I could ask, but I assume the people who leave don’t come back. If you’re someone who left the site for a while after a style change but is back now, please let me know why in the comments. I am genuinely curious.

Don’t judge your numbers by last month, but last year

When I look at my stats for the month, I will sometimes be depressed if one month isn’t as good as the one before. But of course, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. People are spending more time online during certain parts of the year. When it’s nicer out, people want to touch grass, not their laptops.

My outlook got a lot better when I started comparing my numbers each month to that same month the year before. It also gave me a better sense of trends over time.

Pictures matter so much

I didn’t care much about my pictures when I started the site. I was writing, after all, not doing visual art. But when I wanted to post my work on social media, a graphic was needed. And it improved the overall feel of my site dramatically when I started taking that seriously. Rather than just throwing any old thing up if it kind of made sense.

Now I use a structured type of image, to convey the feeling of the post while still looking somewhat uniform. I hope most of you can spot one of my posts in your feed at once, based on the ripped paper title.

SEO makes no damn sense, but it works

I hate SEO. I hate it with every fiber of my being. I hate that if I use a header at the beginning of a new paragraph instead of just bolding it, more people find the page.

While some things about SEO make sense, some do not. Adding graphics helps your SEO. Writing longer posts. Linking to other sites. All of those things make your site more attractive to search engines. I wish I didn’t have to take any of that into consideration, but I do. And it’s, damn it, helped the traffic.

Every post is a new challenge, no matter how many you’ve written

You would think, after writing over a thousand posts for Paper Beats World, I’d have this down. But every time I sit down to write a blog post, it feels like I’ve never written one before.

When you think about it, though, this makes sense. No matter how many books I write, every one feels like the first. Every short story, every poem. Every time I commit words to the page, it feels like I have never done this before. It further feels like I cannot possibly do it again. Whatever muse I had has left me alone, and I am a dry old sock of a writer now with nothing clever to say.

Of course, that isn’t true. But it never gets less intimidating, the blank page. It never gets easier, you just get stronger.

Content has no expiration date

The most popular post so far this year is Three Creepy Podcasts I’ve Been Loving. I wrote that in September of 2019. That is a pre-covid post, and it has more popularity than anything I’ve written so far this year.

I should probably write an updated version of that.

The point is that you shouldn’t feel down if you write a post and it doesn’t get a lot of traction right away. There’s every chance that it’ll spark and go viral later.

Words are not milk to go bad. Words are not rocks to be washed away by the sea. Words are the sea, changing and returning over and over again. We still tell the story of Beowulf. We still read Shakespeare. We still read Rosemary’s Baby. It should be no surprise that blog posts written years ago will still get some attention.

Now, I’d love to hear from you. Let us know in the comments the best lessons you’ve learned about blogging. And don’t forget, everyone who likes this post and leaves a comment will be entered into today’s giveaway. Today, I’m giving away a copy of my Preptober Planner. I’ll announce the winner in tomorrow’s post.

Best of luck, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

If you liked what you saw here today, please consider liking and sharing this post. Or you can support the site financially on Ko-fi.

Broken Patterns is available now for preorder! You can order it now on Amazon.

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Writing when someone you love is ill

I didn’t mean for this post to be late today, but it does kind of fit into the theme.

My husband has several chronic illnesses. I don’t want to go into details because that’s not my story to tell. Suffice it to say that caring for his health is a full-time job for him and a part-time job for me.

If you’ll recall, I also have a full-time job, as well as trying my damndest to have a writing career.

Having a partner with chronic illness is a journey. It’s difficult to watch someone you love suffer. It’s terrifying to come close to losing them. It’s hard to make plans for the day, let alone the future when you just have no way of knowing how their health is going to be from day to day. Some days he’s fine, some days he can’t get out of bed. Some days he goes to the hospital.

There are countless books and blogs about living with a partner with a chronic illness. That’s not what I’m here today to talk about, that’s way out of my lane. What I do want to talk about is maintaining a creative career while caring for a loved one with a chronic illness. Because it’s what I’ve been doing for almost ten years now.

You do not have to keep writing for an audience

Let’s just get this out of the way first. If you don’t want to keep writing for anyone but yourself. I don’t care if you are in the middle of a series. I don’t care if people are waiting with bated breath on the cliffhanger of a lifetime. I don’t care if you’re Stephen King. If Tabitha King suddenly took a nose dive health wise I would light a candle for her and expect to never see another King book.

The people you love will always be more important than any success you might find in this world. If you don’t have the physical or mental bandwidth to create for days, weeks, or even years at a time, that is okay. You don’t owe your art to anyone. Everything else in this post is for people who want to keep going.

Don’t feel guilty

That being said, you do not need to feel guilty if you want to keep writing. My writing career has gotten me through some very dark moments. Having work that I was passionate about has given me something to focus on when I felt useless. It gives me something that is for me. And we all deserve something that is for us. We all need something that is for us.

Be realistic about how much you can take on.

I might seem like the worst person to talk about this. I’m working on a sci-fi series, a podcast series, multiple short stories, writing for this blog, and writing reviews on Haunted MTL. And yes, sometimes that is too much. That’s why this post came out in the afternoon instead of in the morning.

But let’s be fair, there’s always more I could be doing. Things I’d like to do. I’d like to create audiobooks. I’d like to write a serialized story on Wattpad. I’d like to make a true crime podcast series, enter more contests, write more short stories, do more micro-fiction on social media. I want to do so much more than I realistically can do.

Here’s what I suggest. Make a list of everything you want to do. All the projects you would love to work on. Take your time.

Then, list all of your projects from the ones you most want to do to the least.

I keep a whole list on Notion at all times. Sometimes projects drop off the list, and sometimes more get added. But I’m always putting my energy on the top priorities of that list. So if I can only get one thing done, it’s at least the most important thing.

Learn to write in strange places

I am so blessed to have an office in my home. I use it to work from home and write my stories and I love it. It’s bursting with light, colors, art and books. I have ample desk space, a comfortable chair and a place for all my pens.

I don’t always get to write there, though. I have gotten very good at writing in waiting rooms and hospitals. I have written in a notebook balanced on my knees in an uncomfortable plastic chair. I have written on my laptop, sitting on an emergency room couch and trying not to think of what sort of fluids that couch might contain. I’ve written in cafeterias, on patios, with bad cups of coffee and the same Lipton tea every hospital seems to have.

Because of this, I’ve always kept a writer’s bag. I can do an updated post about this if you’d like. I don’t go anywhere without a notebook and pen. Even if I don’t know I’m going to be stuck somewhere for a time and might as well do some writing, I might suddenly get stuck somewhere and be inspired to write a little short fiction.

Be flexible

This one sort of goes along with the last piece of advice.

When you’re dealing with a chronic illness, things cannot always go to plan. This is true for most of us anyway. Washing machines break. People call off at work so you have to go cover for them. The power goes out. The internet goes out. People with chronic illness and their families aren’t immune to these things. We just have that extra hurdle of health to consider. I might be right on pace to meet a deadline, or get a blog post out in time, and suddenly get waylaid because a health concern took precedence.

This is why it’s important to under-promise when it comes to deadlines. Whether you’re working with a publisher or just setting a deadline of your own. If you think something’s going to take a week, plan for two. Trust me, no one is ever angry that you beat a deadline.

You have to be ready for your day to not look how you expected it to look, and roll with it. Trust me, I hate this. This is not where I thrive. I thrive when everything happens exactly how my Google calendar says it’s supposed to happen. I am mentally prepared for that, I have supplies and snacks for that. But we don’t always get to live the day we planned for. We have to live the day we have.

I have a lot more to say about this topic, but we’re running long as it is and this post is late as it is. So I’ll be doing part two next week. See you then.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, please like and share this post. You can also support us financially on Ko-fi.

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